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The fall of Rome Hardcover – 1971

by R. A Lafferty (Author)

5 customer reviews

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Product details

Hardcover: 302 pages
Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (1971)
Language: English
ASIN: B0006CALC4
Package Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
Average Customer Review: 5 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,633,838 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Joseph Moore

I can hardly recommend this book enough if you have any interest in history at all.

May 11, 2017

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Rarely have I enjoyed a book more, and suspect the stories and personalities in it will linger for years to come. Vivid hardly describes it.

Short & sweet: Stop what you're doing, and read this book. Lafferty mentions in passing that the machinations of Olympius in the court of the Eastern Empire were far too complex for a modern mind to grasp. That passage pokes fun at the larger issue, that we are enslaved by our age unless we make the effort to learn about other ages. There are few more enlightening ages to learn about than that of the Roman Empire. It is a small, enslaved mind indeed that is not fired, humbled and saddened at the story of the Fall of Rome and the epics and, ultimately, tragedies of Alaric, Stilicho, Stairnon, Sarus, Singerich, Theodosius and the Empire itself.

Lafferty I knew of only from his unclassifiable SFF-ish short stories. Are they myth? Legend? Parody? They've been called tall tales, which seems about right, but hardly does them justice. The casual brilliance of stories such as the Narrow Valley make it clear we're dealing with a really smart guy.

In the Fall of Rome, Lafferty applies his brilliant story telling talents to Roman history, which he clearly knows and loves deeply. Instead of a dry list of kings being born, fighting battles and dying only to hand power over to other kings who do the same ad infinitum, Lafferty starts with chapters dedicated to helping us learn who the Goths were and how they were ripe to produce so many tragic heroes. He disabuses us (well, me) from any lingering thoughts that the Goths were barbarians in the sense of uncivilized. True, there were more wild elements on the northern fringes largely outside the influence of Rome, but huge swaths of Goths, Vandals and Huns were members of highly sophisticated cultures with ancient traditions and technology as good or better than that of the Romans. (1) These 'border peoples' had been trading with and working in and for the Empire for centuries - and enriching it. The ideals of the Empire, especially in its post-Constantine form that embraced of Christianity, held a strong grip on their imaginations. Lafferty's book is about the consequences of a lapse in that grip among a few key people, and how that brought about the End of the World.

Laferty also makes the point that we of European descent have inherited our foundational emotional relationship to the world from these border people, and not from the Romans. He emphasizes the point in his telling of Alaric's first invasion of Italy. While a battle raged, Stilicho - wiley doesn't begin to describe him - sent a team to round up the women and families of the Gothic leadership who were, according to Gothic practice, accompanying the men at arms. Stilicho treated his hostages well - Alaric's wife Stairnon was sent to live with Stilicho's own family - but made it clear that the fighting needed to end and the Goths withdraw from Italy if the Gothic leaders ever wanted to see them again.

A true Roman would expect his wife and children to die noble deaths rather than be used as bargaining chips against the Res Romana, and carry on the fight. Stories, generally horrifying, of the sacrifices Romans were willing to make for the Republic and Empire make this assertion about their families easy to accept. But a Goth could not imagine a Gothic Thing that was fundamentally different from his family, making the very idea that you'd willingly sacrifice your family for an Empire, however conceived, incomprehensible. Thus, the Gothic leaders quickly retreated to Illyricum, and within a few months were reunited with their families. Alaric held out for a year, but even he eventually retreated and Stilicho sent his wife to him.

We understand Alaric and the Gothic leaders in a way we will never understand the Romans.

But some just wanted to see the World burn. Olympius, a master at manipulation and court intrigue, finally managed to bring down Stilicho. Then, in an event that makes Olympius into a Joker-like madman, at the peak of his power, having defeated Stilicho and seized the reigns of the greatest Empire on earth, he orders, or encourages, or allows the slaughter of the families of the tens of thousands of Gothic soldiers in Italy, by a Roman is for Romans faction. 30,000 Gothic troops defect to Alaric and Athaulf - soldiers who would have died under Stilicho or Alaric to defend Rome are now hell-bent on sacking it. And when Rome the unifying, civilizing idea was no more, and the dust settled, the new Emperor Constantius had Olympius clubbed to death.

I can hardly recommend this book enough if you have any interest in history at all.

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Tim Jekel

Not the same old history of Rome

August 5, 2013

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

R.A. Lafferty's The Fall of Rome should be added to any library of late antiquity. While many historians cover the basic events of Alaric's invasion of Italy adequately, Lafferty presents the Goths in richer detail than I have seen anywhere in such a treatment. The chapter covering their technology and diet are quite good. In addition, Lafferty captures the deep cultural beliefs and assumptions that both cultures brought to the conflicts of the early 5th century. The chapter Res Romana is a masterpiece and I have reread this many times to capture the sense of what the city of Rome was really all about.

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rwalker

Vivid portrait of Late Antiquity

July 28, 2017

Format: Hardcover

I remembered Lafferty from my sci-fi reading days as a teenager and was somewhat surprised to find him in the history section of my library. Lafferty makes peoples (Goths) and individuals (such as Alaric and Stilicho) come alive the way few historians are able to. Suffused with the twilight of Late Antiquity, Lafferty's Fall will linger in your mind after other Roman histories have been forgotten.

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Ron Ginzler

History by a Master of Prose

October 14, 2014

Format: Hardcover

I read this book because I'm a fan of Lafferty's fiction, not because I was interested in the history. But it didn't disappoint. Marvelous writing. If more history books were written this way, history would be a more popular subject.

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Mrs. Brown

Unforgettable

August 8, 2008

Format: Hardcover

A book that should be required reading. Fascinating. I am a professor in English Literature and I reread this book every year.

Graceful prose. Marvelous history. Lays to rest all that you have learned about the fall of the Western Empire.

Fabulous.

Ted

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The fall of Rome Hardcover – 1971

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